Who is Horacio?

Horacio's interest in dancing began in childhood, in a family where people danced a lot.

His professional path began 30 years ago when he came to Europe — to Freiburg and Basel. He grew up in Mexico City, where he studied urban sociology at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. He was a teacher before he became a dance teacher: history, civics and geography in the State of Mexico. His own teaching method later grew out of that.

At first he taught the style danced in Mexico and in much of continental Latin America: lots of sideways movement. This sets it apart from modern salsa en línea as well as from Cuban salsa, which is danced more in circles.

His first trip abroad took him to Cuba. There he fell in love with the Caribbean style, above all with Rueda de Casino, which he studied and cultivated from then on. In the mid-1990s, as a result of the economic crisis of the “Special Period”, many more Cubans came to Europe — and with them the Cuban style gained ground.

In the mid and late 90s, three more salsa styles became established in Europe alongside the Cuban style:

• Puerto Rican style on “1”, known as salsa en línea.
• NY style on “2”, a mix of Puerto Rican salsa and West Coast Swing, shaped by Eddie Torres.
• L.A. style on “1”, a mix of the Mexican style of Los Angeles (Hermanos Vázquez and Salsa Brava) and elements of West Coast Swing.

Horacio calls these three styles “modern salsa”.

Because he wanted to offer his students more quality and variety, Horacio travelled again and again to Cuba, Puerto Rico, New York, Colombia and the Dominican Republic, and attended numerous European congresses — both as a participant and as an instructor. All this experience made him a teacher who masters every salsa style, as a “leader” and as a “follower”.

After a longer break, Horacio is teaching again — with new energy and firmly determined to pass on the knowledge he has built up together with hundreds of students.